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Thursday, 8 November 2012

Planning For The Future

Both Hubby and I are goal setters and there is generally always one or two (sometimes more) things that we are working towards at any one time. We are both very determined to achieve the goals we set and hubby in particular will work 7 days a week if he has to to make things happen. Luckily he is very self aware and recognises the signs of over work and being burnt out. He likes to take a day to recharge and do nothing and I have to be very conscious of not asking to do jobs around the farm. I find this challenging as there are some things that need 2 people and when he finally is home he needs to rest. But we negotiate this and it all works out in the end

Over the past 2 years our goal was to eliminate all debt from our lives with the exception of our mortgage which have only had for 3 years so we are not yet in the position to have paid it off. We also wanted to save some money to give us options of what we might want to do in the future. All the money we saved was kept in our mortgage off set account so it also helped to reduce the amount of interest we were paying.

We have been talking about our living arrangements for sometime and what we want to do. We have considered knocking down/moving the old house we live in and building again, buying a new house and also moving out of the area entirely. We like to get away camping every month or so and we find this is a great time to talk about what we want with out the distractions of all the jobs that we could, should and need to be doing on the farm.

Over the last six months we have talked in depth about what it was that both of us wanted. We had an idea about what it was we thought we might do but it was going to be a BIG change. So we wanted to really take the time to look at all the pros and cons, consider all of the alternatives and then come up with some sort of a plan about how we would make it happen. We have weighed everything up we have made a decision. A decision that is still open to change if we change our minds or circumstances dictate we have to.
But as it stands at the moment we will be packing up our lives and moving to New Zealand.

We have purchased a 5.5 acre bare block of land and intend to move there within the next few years. We have been looking online for the past 12 months and while we were back in NZ in August we inspected about 20 properties. We knew that we wanted to buy vacant land so August was the perfect time to be looking since it is one of the wettest month of the year which allowed us to see exactly what drainage issues existed on each property.

In the end we settled on a property about 20 minutes from my parents on the western side of the north island. We will be about 6 km from Marton and about the same from Bulls. We are within 30 minutes of both Feilding and Palmerston North and 2 hours from the capital Wellington.

The plan is to pay off the land while we are still living here as the exchange rate works in our favour. So for now we are staying where we are saving every cent we can and will just be doing a few cosmetic things over the next year to get our place ready for sale. Which reminds me that I need to get back to work. The first job I am doing is repainting the ceiling in the lounge and at the moment all of our furniture is on the veranda while I get it done. I have washed the ceiling, filled the holes and taped around all the edges ready to start painting. So now I am on the home straight so I better get back to it.

7 comments:

Sorry if this comes up twice - I just posted, but nothing happened.What a fantastic opportunity you have waiting in front of you both. Well done for setting and obviously achieving goals which sound very achievable. Personally, I love love love the NZ lifestyle, tho born here. Good for you Fiona (and hubby)!. cheers Wendy

Wow, exciting! We often have a look at land in NZ, but it seems so expensive and wages low compared to here, we can never quite see how it would work for us. That is a lovely area that you have chosen - I went to uni at Massey :) but I don't miss the wind! I had a tick on me today, and that kind of thing always makes me miss NZ (no ticks or snakes or red backs, only earthquakes!). Ah there are pros and cons to life in both countries (as you know), but it must feel great to have the decision made and be able to make plans from now on. I hope you will continue your blog from NZ......

Yes it is a great area but you are right about the wind. Planting trees is something we will be undertaking asap so they have time to establish. We are taking into account the lower wages which is why we want to have paid off the land before we go. No we will not miss the snakes or the heat, and yes I will still be blogging.

Yes Linda I will still be blogging so you are right our relationship will not change except to improve. Yep no snakes or anything dangerous. You can run barefoot through long grass without a care in the world, you can garden without having to look at what else might be lurking in the mulch. Snakes we will not miss.

Words To Live By

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered; forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; succeed anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; be happy anyway.
Give the world the best you have, it may never be enough; give the world the best you have anyway.
You see in the end, it is between you and God; it was never between you and them anyway.
Mother Theresa

About Me

I am a married 30 something who is keen on living a simple life. At home we focus on eating real unprocessed foods, we use natural remedies when required and try to be as self reliant as possible.
I am a keen cook, fledgling farmer, avid reader, soap maker and enthusiastic gardener.
My husband and I moved from the middle of Brisbane to country Kilcoy so that we could live a simple, uncomplicated life away from the constant pressures of consumerism but have sold up our farm and moved back to the suburbs as we plan our move to New Zealand in 2016. We have already purchased a property there which we are slowly getting set up. We would like to be parents one day and believe that our lifestyle and values will give any children a healthy balanced life.
We are joined on this adventure by our 5 year old dog Jessie and look forward to having chickens and other farm animals again in the near future.